Community and Its People: A Street-Level View of Glastonbury and Bristol
I’ve spent years walking these streets with a camera in hand, documenting the layered lives of Glastonbury and Bristol in everything from rainy protests to midsummer fairs. This project, Community and Its People, grew out of that long-standing relationship. These are places I’ve written about before: Glastonbury with its myth-soaked charm and stubborn independence, Bristol with its murals, its movement, its grit. But in this essay, I wanted to look closer at the quiet moments and contradictions that don’t always make the headlines.
This series isn’t about the postcard versions of these towns. It’s about the people who live in their shadows and their margins. It's about street corners where creativity meets survival, and underpasses where graffiti says more than policy ever does. The photographs are in black and white—partly to draw attention to the subjects, but also because, honestly, so much of life here sits in those grey zones where culture meets hardship, where protest becomes personal, where community is messy, fractured, generous, and enduring.
Glastonbury: Where Spirit Meets Survival
A street musician crouches beside a tangle of panniers and guitar cases, smoke curling from a cigarette as he strums beneath the spires of an old church.
I’ve seen him before—his guitar is part instrument, part shield. The bike tells you he’s always moving, always looking for a crowd, a coin, a corner. He’s not the only one. In a town that trades on mysticism and festival chic, not everyone’s singing for fun. This is work. This is what getting by looks like in Glastonbury—music as trade, hope as currency.
A mural of a nude figure stretches across the wall behind a local painter, his hands flecked with colour and defiance.
There’s something deeply Glastonbury about this: art without permission, bodies without shame. You don’t need a gallery here. You just need a brush and a bit of wall. In past work, I’ve documented how the town reclaims space with spirit, and this is more of the same—part protest, part offering. Creativity thrives where capitalism retreats.
A woman in velvet and feathers, somewhere between street theatre and priestess, takes money from a machine outside Nationwide.
This town is full of characters like her. But what struck me was the contrast—the ceremonial dress, the everyday act. It’s Glastonbury in a nutshell: ancient stories and modern systems, rituals performed under CCTV. We all need cash, no matter what plane we’re operating on.
An elderly woman pushes a trolley past a boy and his dog huddled by a shopfront. Their lives could not be more different.
One is returning from the market. The other, possibly homeless, is waiting—maybe for kindness, maybe just for the day to pass. This is what I try to capture in my street work: fleeting intersections that hint at deeper divides. In a town built on connection, how easily we pass each other by.
A crowd funnels through a graffiti-covered alleyway in the town centre—some engaged, others just passing through.
I've spent hours photographing scenes like this. People are the heartbeat here, and art is the pulse. You see it in the posters, the murals, the layered lives moving through narrow spaces. It’s a town in conversation with itself, even when no one’s talking.
Bristol: Paint, Protest, and Public Space
Gold Platinum Records” stands empty, its name now an ironic echo across shattered windows and spray paint.
I photographed this building years ago when it still had lights inside. Now, it’s become a canvas. Like so much of Stokes Croft, commerce has given way to commentary. It’s a story I’ve told before—buildings fading, voices rising. The paint here says what no shop sign ever did: we were here, we still are.
The Bearpit in the rain: cyclists, activists, shoppers navigating puddles and protest slogans.
This underpass has always been more than infrastructure. It’s been occupied, reclaimed, threatened, and defended. It’s where Bristol wears its values on the wall. In other work, I’ve chronicled the evolution of this place from a gritty no-go zone to a grassroots gallery. It’s not just a passage; it’s a platform.
A mural under a flyover: a Guy Fawkes mask stares down beside the words, “Remember who started the terror.”
It stops you. Makes you think, even if you disagree. That’s the point. Bristol doesn’t do subtle when it comes to injustice. Its walls shout where policy whispers. I’ve followed this tradition of protest art for years—it’s raw, immediate, and utterly public. No gallery required.
The word “COMMUNITY” splashed across the upper floors of a derelict building, each letter a different symbol or face.
This one feels personal. I’ve stood on that pavement before, documenting protests, murals, meals shared on the steps. This building was nearly lost to developers. Locals saved it—not with cash, but colour and conviction. The graffiti isn’t decoration. It’s a declaration. In a city being squeezed, this is a line drawn in spray paint: we belong.